Doctors face ethics showdown in California execution case

AP on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 2/21/06 | Marilynn Marchione - ap

[taxesareforever]

Let me get this straight, there is no shortage of doctors to perform abortions and now in Oregon doctors will be able to euthanize so what is the problem with finding a doctor willing to execute? You would think there was a waiting list.

[paul51]

I find it hard to believe these doctors didn't realize what they were going to be doing until it was time to do it.

[paul51]

I don't have any medical certificates but I'm pretty sure I can tell when someone is dead. I'll volunteer.

[goldstategop]

The SOB Judge Fogel set the fix up perfectly. What we now have is a judicially imposed ban on executions in California.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Anesthetic - Sodium thiopental, which has the trademark name Pentothal, puts the inmate into a deep sleep.

I'm fairly sure this is the general anesthetic they gave me when I had my left leg sliced open and my varicose veins ripped out. Didn't feel a thing.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

Let me get this straight, there is no shortage of doctors to perform abortions and now in Oregon doctors will be able to euthanize so what is the problem with finding a doctor willing to execute? You would think there was a waiting list.

If executions were as lucrative as abortion you'd have a new medical specialty.

[SteveMcKing]

Our "HEROS", ladies and gentlemen - smiling, smirking, and sneering at the world tonight....

Priscilla Ray
6624 Fannin, Suite 2120, Houston, TX 77030
713-797-0112; FAX 713-790-9578

Steven Miles
Department of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School
E-Mail: miles001@umn.edu

Leonard Rubenstein
Human Scum for Human Rights (... yes, I made that up)
lrubenstein@phrusa.org

---

Terri Winchell

Morales choked Winchell with a belt from the back seat, but when the belt snapped, he bludgeoned her 23 times with a hammer. She struggled so hard patches of hair were torn from her scalp, according to the San Joaquin district attorney's office.

Morales dragged the unconscious girl into a nearby vineyard, raped her and stabbed her four times in the chest. Winchell's body was found two days later after Ortega confessed to police.

Source

[swheats]

Amazing how there's a dilema whether this man suffers or not. Yet his victim suffered terribly.

[A CA Guy]

It's BS, they found a couple of activist liberal doctors to raise the ethics issue.

Hope the fellow dies in prison by another inmate by the weeks end to stop the torture the courts and these doctors are causing the family of the murdered girl.

[lizma]

Interesting. If they are so worried about pain a bolus of morphine would do the trick, although Pentathol would knock them out better.

These people's "ethics" are similar to the terrorist "religion". Basically hypocrites and a bunch of hughey.

[ApplegateRanch]

The AMA and many other medical groups have long opposed doctors having any role in executions, including monitoring a prisoner's vital signs or giving technical advice.

But, partial birth abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and starvation of a patient are just fine.

It is only when a scum sucking, worthless SOB that society has judged merits a death penalty that the doctors get all huffy over political concerns "ethics".

[NormsRevenge]

If I'm not mistaken, hanging is the other approved method the 9th circus has blessed for use after tossing the gas chamber and electric chair to the curb.

However, the convict gets to pick his poison. not sure what could happen now, or anytime soon if this holds up..

The Judge has committed a most foul deed and should be made to pay for it.

[Pistolshot]

Doctors should certify the creeps are dead after the trap drops on the hangman's gallows. They should not be injecting the chemicals.

Needless to say, this means going back to a time where justice was swift and public. In this modern with internet communications a random number of people can be chosen to carry out the deed, but only one will have the correct code to complete the execution. Maybe one of the jurors who convicted him should serve as the officer of the state to execute.

[Proud Conservative2]

"Morales' lawyer argued that the inmate would suffer cruel and unusual punishment if not sedated properly. "


It was NOT cruel and unusual punishment for him to bash a girl's head in with a hammer, choke her, rape her and stab her repeatedly, all as a favor for someone?

Sick S.O.B.s, and the lawyers that represent them! Ken Starr is a P.O.S. for taking this case.

[NormsRevenge]

The Judge was intending that the single drug,Pentathol, be the main and only chemical used, it takes four times as long to do the job by itself, however.

He added in the requirement to have 2 anesthesiologists present to recover the inmate if things don't go smoothly which was the itch in the ointment as we now have witnessed.

clever ploy. not wise but clever.

[TeleStraightShooter]

I smell a rat in the CA DA's office.

They could find a anesthesiologist to do it if they wanted to, hell outsource it to India...

[SR 50]

ping

[newzjunkey]

We're upside down. Makes me want to wash my hands of it all but that's means "they" win.

[sang]

Not quite. The same court had rejected similar and earlier claims on the same merits relying on expert testimony. This time, the court looked to evidence from the executions conducted over the last year and noted that for whatever reason, the eyewitness testimony was that respiration did not cease within the time period the court required earlier. So the court gave the State two options while denying the injunction brought by the plaintiff: administer only sodium thiopental or another barbiturate or combination of barbiturates until the plaintiff overdosed or, in the alternative, use medical experts to confirm that the plaintiff is unconscious before the administration of either pancuronium bromide or potassium chloride. The State opted to go with the second option, and that is where the trouble began. The judge was very clear that this had nothing to do with banning the practice as cruel and unusual; it was an equitable remedy that would have permitted the execution to go along as planned. The real problem seems to be that in another order (issued yesterday) the judge also required that the injection be administered not only by someone licensed to do so, but also with a syringe as opposed to an IV. The State apparently objected to this, as they did not want the executioner to have contact with the prisoner. If there is anything to object to, it is the latter requirement. I have not read the order, so I am unaware of what the rationale was for that decision; it was not mentioned in the February 14th order. I am a little curious as to why the State objected to the syringe in the administration of the sedative.

[Kimmers]

Medics are some of the best in health care!!!!